The Radio Times celebration of Doctor Who’s tenth anniversary was a groundbreaking magazine that included the series’ first official episode guide.

By CHRIS BENTLEY

A variant of the memorable image from the cover of the 1973 Radio Times Doctor Who special, featuring a Dalek, a Cyberman and a Sea Devil confronting Jon Pertwee as the Doctor.

Spreads from the special, featuring the new title sequence, interviews with William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee, and a look at “The changing face and nature of Dr Who”.

Radio Times art director David Driver co-edited the special.

The Doctor Who Radio Times special was a late-arriving highlight of the programme’s tenth anniversary celebrations, and its importance can’t be overstated. It may not have been the first magazine devoted entirely to Doctor Who, but, unlike Polystyle’s then-recent Doctor Who Holiday Special, it was the first to be aimed at a mature readership, with the focus firmly on the history and making of the programme. It also boasted the first published episode guide in which titles were assigned to each serial; a simple listing in the 1972 book The Making of Doctor Who had offered only production codes for each story.

The 68-page magazine appeared in newsagents on Tuesday 11 December 1973, four days before Season 11 began transmission with the first instalment of The Time Warrior. Measuring 237 x 300mm, the special was slightly smaller than standard issues of the BBC’s Radio Times magazine, but it was printed on a heavier, glossy stock, without advertisements and in full colour throughout (which the regular magazine wasn’t at that time). This meant that the cover price of 30p (the equivalent of about £4 today) was six times that of the regular Radio Times. Nonetheless, the entire 250,000 print run sold out within weeks.

T he magazine was conceived and designed by Radio Times art director David Driver, who also co-edited it with Jack Lundin. It was Driver who, since 1971, had initiated increased visual coverage of the series in the regular magazine, and it was his enthusiasm that eventually persuaded sceptical Radio Times bosses to publish a special for the tenth anniversary. He devised the contents and layout in a single night in a Paris hotel bedroom.

“I decided to divide and share the special into three zones, as there were three Doctors, and colour-coded each one,” he told Doctor Who Magazine in 1995. “I wanted to have dramatic pictures, followed by lots of history, followed by dramatic pictures and so on. I call that ‘changing gear’ because if something’s all history, it’s fine, but it might as well be a book. If it’s in a magazine format, then it must have strong visual elements going through it and, after all, Doctor Who is very visual.”